Shifting fund gears to a global perspective

by Donald Horne17 Dec 2015

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Shifting fund gears to a global perspective

Transitioning an equity fund can be a tricky business, especially when a new portfolio manager is leading that transition.

Dana Love, vice president and portfolio manager and head of the core equity team at Dynamic Funds, made the conscious effort to work with the departing manager to ensure that the transition was a smooth one.

“We’ve been working closely together over the last 12 months, Adam (Donsky) and myself, jointly part of the Core Equity Team,” says Love. “The way we approach investing and companies is very similar.”

Historically the Blue Chip Equity Fund and the Blue Chip Balanced Fund has been managed with a North American bias and focus, which speaks to Donsky’s expertise in that market, Love told WP.
But that focus will change.

“The plan is to evolve that over a period of time, to evolve the portfolios to leverage and reflect my areas of expertise as a global investor,” he says. “The good news here is two things: the funds don’t need to be repositioned, as they are already set up as global mandates; the second is because Adam and I share a philosophy, the style and the discipline is very similar, so there doesn’t have to be a lot of disruption in the short term.”

That isn’t always the case, Love points out, when one portfolio manager takes over from another.
“Very often it is different styles,” he says, “different approaches to the investment decision-making process. There tends to be an abrupt transition period, where there is a lot of turnover and a lot of changes in a very short period of time. I don’t expect that to be the case here.”